I Wake to a Roomful of Slaves
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They whir up like a jukebox, sing of time telling all, then fill my lungs with mud. I pray their teeth in my throat will loosen. They fade when I do and say, our opera is no song. Soft hands furiously pull-up wheat. Bodies bent and they limp; no rest though dead. I give them bread to eat; they rub their bellies fondly and ask for a cup of leaves. Their mouths full of poverty, they drink my sleep. What more do they want? This life to flower, this world to unfold, some ground, some fire and a bowl of seed? They want what never was. I am their one warm bed. I am the only land they will ever own. [End Page 1072]
Roxane Beth Johnson is author of Jubilee (Anhinga, 2006), which won the 2005 Philip Levine Prize for Poetry. She won an AWP Prize in Poetry and, in 2007, a Pushcart Prize. Her work has also been published in a number of anthologies and periodicals, including Beloit Poetry Journal, Chelsea, American Poet, and The Pushcart Prize Anthology.
